NASA was warned about foam failings

Page Tools

Related

An internal NASA report last December warned of deficiencies in
the way insulating foam was being applied to sections of the fuel
tank to be used on the shuttle Discovery's current mission.

The report seen by The New York Times did not recommend
cancelling the launch, but it was highly critical of the quality
control and practices at the Michoud Assembly Facility in New
Orleans, a plant managed by a main NASA contractor, Lockheed
Martin.

While NASA spent 2½ years and about $US200 million ($260
million) fixing the foam problems, they resurfaced on July 26, when
a piece of foam about 84 centimetres long broke from the tank after
lift-off. Future flights of the shuttle have been suspended until
the problems are finally resolved.

The December 2004 report, by Conley Perry, a retired NASA
division chief for quality engineering at the Johnson Space Centre
in Houston, said it was "obvious" that Lockheed's engineers "did
not do a thorough job" of identifying the quirks and variations
that can occur when foam is applied by hand. Mr Perry wrote that
the agency's reluctance to re-evaluate the quality-control problems
"stems from the 'schedule first' attitude" of Lockheed Martin
management.

Even after two years of effort to correct the foam debris
problem, he warned, "there will continue to be a threat of critical
debris generation".

NASA's assistant administrator for public affairs, David Mould,
said a response to the report had been prepared but could not be
released now because of confidentiality rules.

"NASA and its contractors have made a number of
improvements in the manual application of foam on the external fuel
tank, which have resulted in substantially less debris coming off
the tank at launch. But as we saw, we still have work to do with
the foam," he said.

A Lockheed Martin spokesman, Marion LaNasa, said: "We will defer
to NASA regarding specifics of the memo, but would strongly
emphasise that safety and quality are the guiding forces behind our
workmanship on the external tank."